LONDON – Astronomer and guitarist for the supergroup Queen, Dr Brian May has lent a rare collection of Victorian stereographic photographs to Tate Britain. They are featured in ‘Poor man’s picture gallery’: Victorian Art and Stereoscopic Photography until April 12, 2015. This is the first display in a major British art gallery devoted to the nineteenth-century craze of three-dimensional photography, known as stereographs, and open up this neglected area of British art.

In the 1850s and 1860s pioneer photographers staged real men, women and children in tableaux based on famous paintings of the day, in order to bring them to life as three-dimensional scenes. Henry Wallis’ Chatterton 1856, William Powell Frith’s Derby Day 1857 and John Everett Millais’ The Order of Release 1746 are among twelve of Tate’s famous Victorian and Pre-Raphaelite paintings to be shown with their 3D hand-colored photographic equivalents.

Stereographs comprise two photographs of the same scene taken from fractionally different viewpoints. When these are mounted side by side and viewed through a stereoscope, the viewer sees just one three-dimensional image. Stereographs were inexpensive, and in the 1850s and 1860s they circulated world-wide in their tens of thousands. Many Victorians became familiar with well-known paintings through their stereoscopic counterparts which became known as a ‘Poor Man’s Picture Gallery.’ The photographs were regarded by many as fairly disposable, making them hard to track down today.

The display introduces important figures in stereoscopic photography such as Alexis Gaudin and Michael Burr, and shows how some of their innovations also inspired painters. Burr’s stereograph Hearts are Trumps 1866 anticipated John Everett Millais’ voluptuous painting with the same title six years later, and James Elliott’s Derby Day, One Week after the Derby 1858, pre-empted Robert Martineau’s renowned oil painting of family ruin, The Last Day in the Old Home 1862.

Dr Brian May, said: “We’re thrilled that for the very first time stereographs are now on view at Tate. In this unique display they can be viewed in their full 3-D splendor alongside the beautiful Victorian narrative paintings to which they relate. We’re grateful to Tate Britain, and hope to inspire a new love of stereoscopy in the 21st century.”

Carol Jacobi, Curator, British Art, 1850-1915, Tate Britain said: “This display allows us to consider the works in Tate’s collection in a new light. We are delighted to be collaborating with Dr Brian May, who has built this collection over 40 years, and with Denis Pellerin, who has researched the connections.”

The display has been curated by Carol Jacobi with Dr Brian May and Denis Pellerin. The book The Poor Man’s Picture Gallery: Stereoscopy versus Paintings in the Victorian Era by Dr Brian May and Denis Pellerin is published by the London Stereoscopic Company.

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CHICAGO (AP) – George Lucas is filling in some details on his planned art and movie memorabilia museum, including how the California native settled on Chicago as a location over San Francisco.

It was his wife’s idea.

The Star Wars creator told the Chicago Ideas Week forum on Friday that wife Mellody Hobson, a Chicago native and prominent businesswoman, had enough after four years of what he described as “doodling around” by San Francisco.

“Don’t worry. I’ll talk to the mayor. I’m sure he’ll love it,” she told him, according to Lucas.

And she was right. Mayor Rahm Emanuel has publicly embraced the idea, and the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art is set to take its place in the Museum Campus on the city’s lakefront.

The filmmaker announced in June that he had picked Chicago.

At the forum this week, he also discussed what the museum will look like.

“It’s going to be organic architecture, connected to the ground. And it will look like a living thing,” he said in the conversation with interviewer Charlie Rose at the Cadillac Palace Theatre.

Lucas wants a showcase for his collection of popular art, including illustrations by Norman Rockwell, Maxfield Parrish and N.C. Wyeth as well as works by Lucas’s visual effects company, Industrial Light and Magic, and other companies.

The museum will also feature art linked to film and digital media, as well as a theater that will screen films and host lectures and workshops.

Lucas, who has collected art since he was in college, explained that by “narrative art” he means “art that tells a story.”

“Illustrative art and narrative art has been short-shrifted,” he said. “Critics weren’t dealing with narrative art. They were interested in modern.”

The city will provide the land, but Lucas said he would bankroll construction and the endowment to maintain it.

“I pay for the whole thing and the endowment, and everything,” Lucas said.

“You can afford a museum?” Rose asked.

“Yeah, I can,” Lucas answered.

Copyright 2014 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

AP-WF-10-18-14 2055GMT

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